New Zealand wants more from its science system – more startups, more export revenue and more high-paying jobs. But in the rush to commercialise research, are we putting the discoveries that fuel future breakthroughs at risk?

That tension sits at the heart of the latest episode of The Business of Tech, featuring Professor Frank Bloomfield, the University of Auckland’s deputy vice-chancellor of research and innovation.

With around 39,000 full-time equivalent students supported and generating $1.63 billion in revenue last year, the university is New Zealand’s largest and a formidable concentration of researchers, specialist facilities and emerging talent. 

Bloomfield, a respected neonatologist, researcher, and former director of the Liggin’s Institute, argues that its role extends far beyond teaching students and publishing academic papers. A modern university should also be a talent engine, an innovation partner and an active contributor to the economy around it.

From basic research to world-beating product

Auckland has already produced innovation success stories. Wireless charging pioneer PowerbyProxi is a prime example, emerging from university research with the help of the university’s commercialisation arm, Uniservices, before being acquired by Apple. The challenge is to repeat that feat in areas where New Zealand has genuine capability, including medtech, space, advanced manufacturing, biotechnology and clean energy.

Bloomfield says there is no single switch that turns an academic discovery into a successful company. Intellectual-property rules matter, but so do entrepreneurial skills, early-stage funding, access to laboratories, industry relationships and support from people who know how to take an idea to market.

The university is trying to assemble that full pipeline through its Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, commercialisation company UniServices and a $40 million evergreen Inventors Fund. Its Newmarket Innovation Precinct is also bringing researchers and companies together physically, with about 38 businesses and 140 people based there at the time of the interview.

Scale, talent, and connections

But significant gaps remain. Auckland, and New Zealand in general, is still short of the scale-up capital needed to turn promising ventures into global companies. Universities, business, councils and central government are not always pulling in the same direction. Academic career incentives can also favour papers and teaching over building products or spinning out companies.

Bloomfield wants stronger innovation precincts, smarter immigration settings and incentives that help attract talent and keep ambitious companies here.

His strongest warning, however, is against pursuing quick commercial wins at the expense of fundamental science. The technologies being commercialised today often rest on blue-skies research conducted years or even decades ago.

Stop funding that exploratory work, Bloomfield says, and New Zealand risks draining the pipeline on which its future innovators will depend.

Listen to the full conversation on The Business of Tech, streaming on iHeartRadio, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.